Thursday, March 23, 2006

Permanent bases? It's official

I've been catching a lot of grief over the past few years when I've written that the goal of the Iraq war is permanent occupation of the country--a key element of a plan for regional hegemony. All the talk of pulling out troops and handing over the government to the Iraqis is part of the farce.

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), suggested recently that the U.S. may maintain permanent bases in Iraq. But the U.S. has even grander plans in the region, according to Washington Post blogger William Arkin. "The U.S. military has developed a ten-year plan for 'deep storage' of munitions and equipment in at least six countries in the Middle East and Central Asia to prepare for regional war contingencies," according to Arkin. The plan is revealed in March 2006 Pentagon contracting documents, and it calls for "the continued storage of everything from packaged meals ready to eat (MREs) to missiles in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, as well as the establishment of two new storage hubs, one in a classified Middle Eastern country 'west' of Saudi Arabia ('Site 23') and the other in a yet to be decided 'central Asian state.'"